


scherzo

by psalloacappella



Series: fix me with your grace [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Blank Period, Bonnie and Clyde vibe, F/M, SSBlankPeriod2021, Sakura's hangry, Uchiha Sasuke starring himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:41:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29001648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psalloacappella/pseuds/psalloacappella
Summary: “You miss him — don’t deny it! You’re a softhearted man.”“I plead the fifth.”Quiet laughing, shared only in a small clearing at the edge of the world, filthier than they like but close to the salt and earth and sea, nothing in between them but love and a basket of peeled fruit.❦For #SSBlankPeriod2021Day 2 Prompt(s): Cooking // "I didn't know you had that habit."
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Series: fix me with your grace [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125785
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	scherzo

**Author's Note:**

> I can't cute only banter

❦

The first time she does it, Sasuke is quite sure he’s succumbing to blindness, or at least some degradation of sight. Must have been a trick of the light.

The second time she does it prompts a double-take.

On the third time he looms up behind her as she crouches near the fruit basket, and can’t help the incredulous sigh that escapes him, which startles her; in hindsight, his approach was a poor choice of abrupt entrance into her space, considering she’s been putting a sharp object so close to her lips.

Discarded rinds flutter to the forest floor as well — as butterflies, as kaleidoscopic confetti littering the ground beneath them from her produce peeling. 

“Sasuke-kun!” The knife falls to the dirt with a keen metal pitch. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“What  _ are _ you doing, Sakura?”

“You said your vision was fine,” she says with a pout. “Making dinner, obviously.”

“And . . . have you always done that?”

“Done what?”

A rustle and sigh, not wanting to give form and shape to the action. Plucking up the knife now spattered with dry soil, she gently cleans it against the material of her thigh and settles into her haunches properly, seeming puzzled. Flame of the small makeshift pit of fire popping merrily, a boiling stone pot waiting to be fed previously-peeled vegetables. Between her thumb and forefinger she dangles the knife absentmindedly.

Maybe it’s a silly worry — maybe he’s just hungry. Brow furrowing, he decides to tell the truth in his sometimes brusque way.

“Just be careful with that. And anyway, where’d you pick that up? Seems like something our teammate might do.”

When her eyes flash for a moment, bright in the fading daylight, he considers that so far out from the main road, no one could hear him scream.  _ Ah, stupid response. _

She rolls those elegant green eyes in a long, mocking arc, and blows a strand of long pink hair out of her face. Both of them are a bit scruffy, a long way from an inn or even a village, off the grid for a while after encounters with persistent bandits. Possessing renowned abilities and not exactly strangers to the world after being honored post-war, they concluded they may have overdone it in their retaliation.

And, propping up the bodies afterward near a visible post near the road (gently, of course, and with all limbs intact!), they decided to travel light and low the following weeks.

They’ve watched each other transform into slightly more feral versions of one another. It’s not unwelcome, the smudges on her face and the ragged edges of her hair beginning to reach her waist. He wonders what he must look like to her; brutish, perhaps, although by the way they’re so close at night, perhaps not.

She’s not exactly the same girl he left behind. 

“Is poisoning the way you wanted to go, darling?”

Sasuke blanches. “Sakura?”

Flipping the knife and catching it again, she aims the point at him. “Do  _ not _ compare me to Naruto, or there will be a tragic accident here indeed.”

He’s done this before, stumbled into a flippant comment that he doesn’t expect to get her going. Well, he’s learning.

“In fact, don’t compare any woman to Naruto,” she adds, wrinkling her nose. “Not if you prefer living.”

Sasuke tamps down a snort that could be laughter. He doesn’t usually stop her rants — they’re sort of endearing.

“Listen, I know you were wandering around the world with your own . . . aims,” she says, waving the knife around again, “but I did an  _ absurd  _ lineup of missions while you were gone: reconnaissance, medical dispatch, undercover — yes, I did, I see that smirk of yours, and don’t you know women tend to have much, much higher completion rates than the men on those?” 

Yes, Sasuke knows all these things, but getting her heated, sometimes, is a joy and entertainment in itself that he’s at least been smart enough not to admit. Assumes she’ll discover it eventually, the way he quiets down in the face of her temper, the shameless way he’s realized he watches her eyes and lips and an angry rouge simmer up through the skin of cheeks and chest. 

“Not to mention I’m usually the only kunoichi on those missions, or at the very least outnumbered; do you know what it’s like to bunk with a whole damn bunch of you? Gods!”

Jabbing the knifepoint in the basket next to her laden with a colorful bouquet of chopped produce, it comes up with a piece of apple, which she points at him in a vaguely threatening manner. 

The sight of this particular fruit sends a strange pang throughout, plucking at a string in his heart in the vein of a vibrating and resonating harp.

“And if you’re worried about me hurting myself,” she says with a sharp tongue cluck, “I’ll have you know — but you should already know! — that I’ve performed  _ countless _ surgeries, sewed up hundreds of bodies, been horribly poisoned, pinned like a cushion, and sure maybe I  _ have _ picked up a gross habit or two from Naruto, but you know what being around him is like, he rubs off on everyone, and the  _ point  _ is,” and now she takes an angry bite of the apple chunk that’s still speared through with the knife, chewing angrily, and waves the uneaten half at him some more, “I am perfectly capable of using knives, and at total and complete liberty to lick the knife when I’m done! It isn’t the worst thing you can put in your mouth anyway. You’re one to talk: You put all sorts of inanimate things in your mouth, even when I offer to help you, you were bandaging  _ wounds _ with your  _ teeth  _ for gods’ sake!”

Just about spent, she seems to burn even brighter in the dusk. Sasuke thinks of fruit on hospital floors, the earth splitting beneath his feet: She is at once something gentle, something fierce. 

When she tosses the knife back into the fruit basket and the spearing of a cleaved, unlucky fruit chunk sounds between them, Sasuke’s too slow to hide his smirk and knows he’s been found out. 

“You think this is funny! Oh-ho, you think it’s hilarious when I’m mad, don’t you? When I defend myself?”

Sasuke shakes his head, lackadaisical. Settled in and sated like a large jungle cat. “I didn’t want you cutting yourself. That’s all.”

“Could’ve saved me the rant, then,” she mutters. Her stomach growls louder than she anticipates, and she presses her hands to her face and groans. “So embarrassing! I’m hungry, dirty, fucking vagabond vogue and you just sit there and you look so, ugh, self-satisfied.” 

Sighing, she tumbles back into a sitting position and cards a hand through her long hair. 

“I shouldn’t have compared you to Naruto,” he offers, still fighting a smirk. “It wasn’t what I meant in the slightest.” He pauses. “I . . like you this way.”

“Oh, what way?”

“ . . . scrappy?”

“You mean filthy?”

“Strong?”

“Should’ve known that by now.”

“Indeed.”

“Bandits? A lil’ thing called the Fourth Shinobi War? Naruto’s ribs?”

“Ah, now who’s bringing up the idiot?”

“You miss him — don’t deny it! You’re a softhearted man.”

“I plead the fifth.”

Quiet laughing, shared only in a small clearing at the edge of the world, filthier than they like but close to the salt and earth and sea, nothing in between them but love and a basket of peeled fruit.

“Perhaps . . . I did speak out of turn.”

Sakura leans back on hands, tosses her head to the sky to beam at the budding evening stars.

“I do appreciate it, though. You caring, I mean,” she adds. “But I promise I know my way around sharp objects.”

Something slips from his lips in undertone, a quiet remark that draws her mischievous green gaze.

“That too,” she says. She tosses her long, wild hair over her shoulder and meets his eyes head-on. 

Staring back and channeling the same crackling heat as the fire a few feet away.

“So,” she says triumphantly, eyes aglitter, “shall we discuss, over dinner, the bad habits involving  _ your _ mouth, Sasuke-kun?”

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the SSBlankPeriod2021 series, which is going on this week. Def peep that hashtag for sweet, sweet content from our talented fandom! Drop by, say hi!


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